My work is a visual diary, exploring historical events and memories, mixed with fictionalized stories. The body of work I present you, titled “The Heads”, is an opportunity for the viewer to wander through my psyche, using mirrors, reflections, and at times seeming aquatic, in an attempt to lead the viewer down a path that is ultimately their own.
I am concerned with the role a woman plays within her relationships, including the relationship she has with herself. The many roles women play, and the emotions associated with these roles, are represented by curious duplications, reflections, and scrims – hiding the identity of the form. These self-portraits are seen through the lens, not manipulated in post-process. My intention is to describe the emotional gravity of abuse, self-doubt, love, and unrequited love – providing a mirror to my viewer. While the images can be beautiful, they can also reveal fear and darkness, hopefully resulting in a strange marriage between very different emotions.
I explore my feelings, fears, and doubts through self-examination, alluding to the effects of abuse, sometimes self-inflicted. This is accomplished through glimpses, and sometimes fully descriptive images, of a human face or head, and an evocative use of chroma and patina, which calls forth the remnants of a bruised life. The male figure in this work is used as an example of fleeting relationships, the assumption of something more permanent but never fully realized – the intertwined lover that is very much a part of reality but possibly only a dreamt reality.
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Ruth Dudley-Carr is a photographer that works in a variety of ways, including digitally and in the darkroom. She holds a BA in Theatre Production from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan and worked as a scenic artist for many years before finding her opportunity to speak through a lens.
Ruth completed the Professional Certificate Program at Maine Media College in Rockport,
ME in May 2011.
Ruth uses the camera to discuss the many aspects of her life and to address the concerns
that she feels most people can relate to in regards to sexuality, love, the destruction of
emotion, and the exploration of self.
For more of Ruth’s work please visit
→ www.ruthdudleycarr.com
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